OKLAHOMA CITY - Governor Mary Fallin declared November 2011 as “State of Creativity Month” in Oklahoma. The governor credited Creative Oklahoma for their efforts to enhance Oklahoma through events designed to showcase the state’s creativity.

“Creative Oklahoma has worked tirelessly to establish Oklahoma as a world-renowned center of creativity and innovation,” Fallin said. “Their efforts have contributed to the economic and cultural growth of our state. In addition to Creative Oklahoma’s efforts, several events in the month of November led to my decision to make November the ‘State of Creativity Month’ in hopes it will inspire our state to think of innovative solutions to our problems.”

The “State of Creativity Month” kicked off with the Oklahoma Creativity Forum on Tuesday, Nov. 1, at the Embassy Suites Conference Center in Norman. The Oklahoma Creativity Forum included a number of world-class speakers as well as the opportunity to network with state leaders in business, education and culture. Other events happening in November included Global Entrepreneurship Week and the Creativity World Forum that was held in Hasselt, Belgium, where a delegation of 20 Oklahomans were present.

“It is an honor to work with Governor Fallin to bring attention to Oklahoma through ‘State of Creativity Month,’” said Susan McCalmont, president of Creative Oklahoma. “Together we hope the events of November will inspire Oklahomans to imagine ideas and create ways to innovate their ideas into products and services for the marketplace.”

Smartphone ownership in the United States is on the rise. But a survey by Nielsen suggest that it is happening among some age groups faster than others.

Nielsen's third-quarter survey of mobile phone users found that 43 percent of them have upgraded to a smartphone. For mobile users below the age of 44, the smartphone is speeding toward mass adoption.

"This is a wake-up call for potential advertisers waiting for a tipping point for mobile media or for smartphones to reach the majority," said Don Kellogg, director of telecom research and insights at Nielsen. "We're already there with certain segments - 62 percent of those ages 25 to 34 already have smartphones. That's critical mass."

After young adults, however, the segment with the fastest-growing smartphone adoption rate is older phone owners, between the ages of 55 and 64. Although the penetration among those users is only 30 percent, that figure jumped 5 percentage points this quarter.

Teenagers are still slower to adopt smartphones, probably due to the high cost of the devices and the expensive data plans they require.

The survey also found that Android is hanging on to its position atop the totem pole of mobile operating systems in the United States, with 43 percent of the market. However, Apple is the top smartphone manufacturer, with 28 percent of smartphone owners owning an iPhone.

White House officials are urging House and Senate lawmakers to maintain a separate funding account for high-profile Gov 2.0 and "eGov" initiatives such as Data.gov, Federal IT Dashboard and Challenge.gov rather than merging them with other funds as currently proposed.

Under the House and Senate budget bills for fiscal 2012, the flagship Electronic Government Fund would be combined with another fund. Both bills also would maintain recent dramatic cuts to the electronic government fund.

In a statement on Nov. 10, Office of Management and Budget officials argued that combining the eGovernment and Federal Citizen Services funds into a single pool would introduce uncertainty about how the funds would be allocated, given the different purposes of the funds.

Furthermore, White House officials urged Congress to provide "adequate funding" to maintain the initiatives, saying they enhance transparency and oversight and "yield a high return on investment through cost-saving efficiencies." The eGovernment fund has been under siege in budgetary talks in Congress. Earlier this year, the fund was reduced from $34 million in fiscal 2010 to only $8 million for fiscal 2011. For fiscal 2012, the House has voted to consolidate the transparency fund with the citizen services fund. The full distribution of the funds was not clear, although the Sunlight Foundation estimated the eGov initiatives would receive about $13 million. The Senate Appropriations Committee voted to reduce the consolidated funding, also leaving the impact on the eGov initiatives unclear. However, the Sunlight Foundation forecasted that the transparency initiatives would suffer severe cuts. "Many programs will be terminated. Data quality will suffer. No fixes or improvements to current programs are likely," the foundation said in its blog on Sept. 16.

OK.gov is the official website of the state of Oklahoma and a collaborative effort between the Oklahoma Office of State Finance (OSF) and Oklahoma Interactive, LLC to help Oklahoma government entities Web-enable their information services. OSF is responsible for OK.gov. Oklahoma Interactive operates, maintains, and markets OK.gov and is part of eGovernment firm NIC’s (NASDAQ: EGOV) family of companies.